1. Field of the Invention (Technical Field)
The present invention relates to methods and apparatuses for ensuring that a product or products being manufactured have not fallen out of bake/cure/freeze or like specifications during a power failure event.
2. Description of Related Art
Power outages, such as from lightning strikes, can last from a few minutes to several hours or longer. After a power outage, persons maintaining a production facility usually go around and reset the ovens/freezers/chambers so that the devices can continue the cure/bake-out or similar cycles (sometimes an oven or freezer can be missed, but this is rare) and to make sure that the units are on. If the power outage lasts more than the chamber's insulation can maintain internal temperature (thermal inertia), the process will go out of specification even if maintenance does reset the chamber. Not knowing the chamber's downtime may give a false sense of security when one comes back into work and the chamber is on, which may lead to catastrophic results (e.g., severe delamination while going over a wave solder machine, moisture trapped under a coating thereby causing corrosion, adhesives not bonding properly, and premature failure of the manufactured article (quite possibly in the field), etc.). The present invention provides a direct solution to this problem.